


hero

by michpat6



Series: aftermath [8]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, They’re tired, link remembers something!, they have brinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michpat6/pseuds/michpat6
Summary: They’ve finally gotten settled in the house, bathed and in fresh clothes, and the sun is starting to rise. But they never ate dinner, but it’s morning, so here they are having...brinner?
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: aftermath [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033743
Comments: 5
Kudos: 117





	hero

Link doesn’t realize he’s dead on his feet until he’s standing in the “kitchen” and almost cuts his fingers off making...He’s making...

What is he making?

He stares down at his cutting board, and-Oh, right. Meat skewers.

He glances back at Zelda and finds her in the same tired haze at the table, her head resting in her hand and her eyes glazed over as she stares at the Champions’ weapons mounted on the walls.

They’ve finally gotten settled in the house, bathed and in fresh clothes, and the sun is starting to rise. But they never ate dinner, but it’s morning, so here they are having...brinner?

“Where am I going to sleep?” she asks. She looks nice in that blue nightgown he bought.

“In the bed,” he answers.

“In your bed?”

“It’s the only bed here.”

“But it’s  _ your _ bed.”

“And now it’s yours.”

He hears her sigh.

“Then where are  _ you _ sleeping?”

“I’m going to take a bed from one of the new houses and put it next to the bow mounts.” he picks up the cutting board, steadying the cubes of steak that slide on it and reaching into the drawer by his hip, pulling out a severed arrowhead. “Back in a minute.”

Link goes outside to the cooking pot and dumps the meat into it, grabbing the hunk of flint sitting in the grass and striking it with the arrowhead. Sparks fly, a fire lights under the pot, and it doesn’t take long for the steak to sizzle.

He stares out at the sunrise, automatically reaching for the Sheikah Slate to snap a photo. But the slate is inside, so his fingers are met with his thigh and he instead commits the sight to flimsy memory.

_ Big Brother! _

He blinks. What?

_ Big Brother! _

He’s standing on a platform with a small blonde girl, looking down at a vast ocean.

_ This is my favorite spot to gaze out at the sea,  _ The girl’s voice is an echo, a ringing in his ears, and the smell of salt makes his nose sting-  _ When I play with the gulls, I call it Aryll’s lookout. _

He blinks again and he’s back in Hateno, sitting under a tree, cooking meat skewers.

He’s cooking. He’s cooking for Aryll because she’s his little sister and their grandmother is getting old and is today his birthday? What day was he born? Does he even-

_Zelda_ ,  he remembers. His hands shake.  _ I’m cooking for Zelda. _

Link swallows, smothers the fire under the cooking pot, and waits for it to cool.

The visions have gotten... _ worse _ isn’t the right word, they’re not  _ bad_, they’re just...confusing. Vague. They’ve gotten more frequent, is all, and he doesn’t think being as sleep deprived as he is helps to stop them.

He wonders why he’s getting them. Did the other Heroes experience the same thing? Will the Link after him see this moment, see this Zelda, this Hyrule? What will that Link think of him? Which version of himself will that Link see? The him from Before, or the him now, in the aftermath?

His head pounds and he shakes his head.  _ This is too existential for me right now. _

He scoops the steaming steak back onto the cutting board and heads back inside. Zelda startles at the sound of the door opening, jerking in her seat, and looks at him with bleary eyes.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s fine,” she murmurs back, yawning.

He sets the cutting board down in the middle of the table, and finds that the wood skewers are already there.

“I went snooping,” Zelda admits.

Link smiles. “Find anything interesting?”

She shakes her head. “How long have you lived here?”

“I bought it a few months ago, but I only came here to drop off the Champions’ weapons and sleep,” he shrugs, sitting down across from her and grabbing a skewer and half of the steak, shoving the meat onto the stick. “This’ll be my first time actually living somewhere.”

Well, not his  _ first  _ time, but he has amnesia. He’s had a lot of firsts that were actually his seconds.

The princess picks up her fork and stabs her cubes of steak one at a time, daintily sliding them onto her skewer and resting it on her plate.

He watches her do it, embarrassed at the way he just…snatched his food with his bare hands when there’s a fork right in front of him.

(In his defense, he forgot he had a fully-set table.)

Zelda smiles at him, unbothered. “You’ve always been a different person when it comes to food.”

He remembers that entry in her journal, and puts his skewer on his plate, too. “A glutton, right?”

“I keep forgetting you’ve already read my diary.”

“Only the stuff about me,” he’s quick to say, ears hot. “I didn’t-I’m not a-“

“Not a snoop like me?”

“No!” he’s spluttering, he’s making a fool of himself, she must think he’s an idiot- 

She laughs. “Relax, Hero, I’m only teasing.”

And then he’s assaulted by flashes of memory.

The edge of Lake Kolomo. He’s experienced this one before. She looks back at him over her shoulder and slyly asks,  _ Can you hear it yet, Hero? _

Goron City. She’s sweating, exasperated as he struggles to open a fireproof elixir with slick palms.  _ Come on, Hero. How do you expect to kill the Calamity when you can’t even open a bottle? Oh, just give it to me- _

The Spring of Courage. She’s upset and rips a blanket out of his hands, sneering,  _ Thanks, Hero . _

The halls of-The halls of Hyrule Castle? He’s walking beside her through that maze in the dark, and she’s giggling. Are they holding hands? She stops, tugs him close, and teases,  _ You’re the Hero, Hero. You tell me. _

“Link?” she touches his hand.  _ Hateno. Brinner.  _ “Are you all right?”

“You’ve called me that before,” he breathes, staring hard at her fingers on his knuckles. “‘Hero’.”

Zelda’s smile leaves her eyes. “I have?”

He nods. “I-I remembered some...They were just flashes of you calling me the Hero, but...”

But they were in the castle and they were maybe holding hands in the dark and she was touching his face and bringing him closer-

“Never mind,” he manages.  _ She wasn’t doing that with me.  _ “It’s nothing.”

She pulls her hand back, and stays quiet.

The rest of brinner is awkward. He’s almost glad when they’re done eating and Zelda asks if he needs her help getting his bed from a neighboring house.

“No,” Link tells her.  _You’re the Hero, Hero._ “I’ve got it. Go rest.”

He watches her go up the loud, creaking stairs and leaves to steal a bed.

**Author's Note:**

> hmmmm i wonder why zelda would react like that


End file.
